J Syst Evol

• Research Article •     Next Articles

WalDB: An evolutionary multi-omics database for the walnut family (Juglandaceae)

Zhen-Zhen Liu, Qing Xu, Yu-Qing Han, Yan-Feng Song, Hao-Sheng Liu, Da-Yong Zhang*, Wei-Ning Bai*, Bo-Wen Zhang*   

  1. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, 100875 Beijing, China
    * Correspondence: zhangdy@bnu.edu.cn; baiwn@bnu.edu.cn; zhangbw@bnu.edu.cn.
  • Received:2026-04-03
  • Supported by:
    This project is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32370230 and 32500189) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Abstract: Juglandaceae (the walnut family) comprises nine genera with deep evolutionary history and substantial ecological and economic importance, yet available genomic resources remain fragmented, taxonomically incomplete, and inconsistently annotated. Here, we present Walnut Family DB (WalDB; https://cmb.bnu.edu.cn/WalDB/), a clade-wide multi-omics database specifically developed for evolutionary and comparative genomic research in Juglandaceae. WalDB integrates 79 nuclear genome assemblies, 170 chloroplast genomes, 22 mitochondrial assemblies, population-level variant datasets (SNP and SV VCF files from 10 projects), and transcriptomic resources from six projects and 19 studies. Organized into six interactive modules, the platform enables family-wide exploration of genome structure, gene evolution, and functional divergence. Importantly, to improve cross-species comparability, we generated standardized ab initio annotations for 27 high-quality genomes with unified pipeline, thereby minimizing annotation biases that often hinder comparative analyses across datasets produced by different studies. Integrated tools further support ortholog identification, synteny visualization, co-expression and enrichment analyses, and Ka/Ks-based genomic distances calculation. By combining broad taxonomic coverage with standardized annotation and evolutionary analysis tools, WalDB provides a comprehensive and scalable resource for investigating genome evolution, adaptation, and phylogenetic diversification in Juglandaceae.